When The Detroit News went online on July 14, 1995, as detnews.com, it was just one more chapter in a rich history of technological advancement by the newspaper James E. Scripps founded in 1873.
The website was an invention of necessity. The paper’s management staff was attempting to maintain the continuity of publication amid a difficult newspaper strike. Led by the paper’s first digital director Nancy Malitz, a small core of online staffers representing a cross-section of the newsroom had already been developing conceptual plans for a website.